Hekima Kanyama
Founding Elder, Board Advisor

Hekima Kanyama is a husband, father and grandfather. He has been married to a wonderful Sister, Tamu Sana Kanyama, for 50 years. Together, they have created a legacy of work and dedication to community. Their three daughters and extended family, continue the work.

Hekima is a product of the student sit-in movement of the early 60’s and the Black Power/Black Nationalist Movement of the 60’s and 70’s.

Hekima was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1966 he received a B.S. degree from North Carolina Central University. He was later admitted to the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Hekima has dedicated 50+ years of his life to the liberation of African People. He began his journey in the early-sixties as a part of the student sit-in movement in the South. Even as a youth he saw a need for change. While in graduate school he was drafted to serve in the U.S. war in Vietnam. Facing imprisonment and ridicule, Hekima stood his ground, and refused to fight in a war he felt was unjust. With help from the community he was able to claim conscientious objector status and avert federal prison time.

After college, Hekima became even more involved in the struggles of our people. During the late 60’s he embraced Black Nationalism and became a Citizen and leader in the PG-RNA.

In 1971, as a target of the FBI led Cointelpro, Hekima and others were attacked and forced to defend themselves in a deadly shootout with police in Jackson, Mississippi. These brothers and sisters became known as the RNA-11. Due to a technicality, Hekima was able to obtain release from US imprisonment after nine years.

Starting in about 1974, Hekima (while still in prison) began to write on a new approach for Black Empowerment. In 1980 (after release) he started to organize based on this new thinking. He tested the plan for one year in Milwaukee. After moving to Atlanta in 1981, Hekima continued to test his plan, but met with little success until 2003 with the founding of the African Community Centers for Unity and Self-Determination, Inc. Other Brothers and Sisters joined with him, his wife and family to put in place a permanent (intergenerational) system to naturally aid us in building power to control the economic, political and cultural life of our community. This permanent system is called “Functional Unity”.

In 2011, Hekima and others formed a think-tank that gave birth to Us Lifting Us Economic Development Cooperative LLC (ULU). This global business organization seeks to build, maintain and pass to future generations, institutions and systems that give us the capacity to gain economic control of our communities and nations.

Hekima believes that with Functional Unity, Africa will be redeemed. He believes that with the growth and maturity of the system of Functional Unity and Ujamaa (Family-Centered Economics), we will have the proper tools to forever throw off the yokes of domination and exploitation by others and establish ourselves as a servant of none but ourselves and The Most High.

Sababu K. Shabaka
Chair, Finance Committee

Sababu K. Shabaka (commonly called Shabaka) was born and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Morgan State University with degrees in Mathematics and Physics. He left for New Jersey to work in the solid state physics and chemistry division of Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs), a research and development facility of AT&T. He worked at Bell Labs for six (6) years and was promoted to associated members of the technical staff (essentially, an applied science researcher). While at Bell Labs, Shabaka became active and president of the Association of Black Laboratories Employees (ABLE), an advocacy group that fought against racial discrimination at the labs. During his presidency, the group was able to bring such personalities as, Dr. Ben, Dr. Clarke, and Brother Gil Nobles to speak.

Before leaving Baltimore in 1973, Shabaka affiliated himself with members of the Nation of Islam, under the leadership of the Messenger Elijah Muhammad. Before the death of the Messenger in early 1975 he joined a study group of the Congress of African People (CAP) and two years later became a delegate to the National Black Independent Political Party. In 1977 he left CAP and NBIPP and joined the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party.

He left the Party in the early 1980s and began to travel back and forth to Africa for the next 15 years, visiting over twenty (20) African countries and islands. He joined the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization (ASCAC) in the mid 1980s, and helped to organize a trip of nearly 1,000 persons to Kemet (Egypt) in 1988. He became president of the Southeastern Region of ASCAC before it was divided and stayed with the organization for several years.

In 2000 he joined the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), and currently serves as its National Treasurer. He is also currently a member of the Lasana K. Mack Think Tank (LKMTT) of APPEAL (Association of People for Pan-Africanist Economic Advancement thru Leverage), based in Washington, DC.

Shabaka is currently retired having spent decades teaching mathematics at the University of the District of Columbia, and Morgan State University. In addition to teaching Shabaka has helped to start several non-profit organizations that worked on projects in Africa, as well as, a current partner in Ujamaa, llc, an education consulting business based in Miami. He is a father of two, grandfather of four, and great grandfather of five.

Byron K.Merritt (Kimbizi)
Board Secretary, Co-Chair Membership/Training and Development Committee

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and raised in Queens, New York, Bro. Kimbizi is a product of the New York City Public School system graduating with honors from Andrew Jackson HS in 1966. He attended the historic March on Washington with his family and faith community in August of 1963, where Dr. King’s, “I Have a Dream” speech and the experience of being among the 250,000 marchers left an indelible impression on his life. He went on to attend Syracuse University from 1966-1970 majoring in Political Science with a History minor. While at Syracuse University, he served as president of the Student Afro-American Society which successfully agitated for the creation of an Afro- American Studies Department, a Black Student Cultural Center and the Martin Luther King Memorial Library which became permanent fixtures at Syracuse University. From 1972 – 1975 he was a member of the Committee For A Unified NewArk and the Congress of Afrikan People under the dual leadership of Amiri Baraka and Dr. Maulana Karenga. Following the sudden death of his father from a heart attack in 1975, Bro. Kimbizi relocated to Atlanta, Georgia.

Beginning in 1980, he joined the 5000 member Mt. Ephraim Baptist Church under the dynamic leadership of Rev. R.L. White Jr. and became their first Director of Christian Education in 1985. To fulfill these duties bro. Kimbizi enrolled in the Interdenominational Theological Center in 1987 and earned a Master’s of Divinity degree with a focus on “Liberation Theology” and Education. In 1995, he was part of a small leadership team of metropolitan ministers who facilitated the creation of Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (A.B.L.E.) The goal of ABLE was to build affordable low-income housing, provide ‘after- school’ programming for at-risk Atlanta children and create a mechanism for community policing. From 1995-2008, Bro. Kimbizi was active with the Shrines of the Black Madonna and First African Church where he taught classes and led seminars. An avid reader of African history and student of Kamitic philosophy, bro. Kimbizi is currently researching the intersection of culture and economics.

Bro. Kimbizi has been married to Zeoria Merritt for 33 years and they are the proud parents of two daughters, Furaha, a magnet student/junior at SWD High School and Naomi, who is currently pursuing a Masters of Social Work degree at Clark University.

Sistah Q
Board Member

When a gentle breeze kisses your face think of Sistah Q. For like the wind, she is always on the move. You don’t see her coming and you don’t see her leave. You do, however, feel her presence. 

Qaraandin is clear that whatever healing is necessary within our community lies within the community, not within a ballot box, an executive order, or a referendum. She has spent most of her life working to help the community bring its healing forward.

Sistah Q sees Us Lifting Us as an important medium for our community healing.

Woullard Lett
Board Member

Woullard Lett has worked as a social change and justice advocate for most of his life. His work is grounded in an animist understanding of spiritual transformation and social healing as materialist manifestations of divine unity. He has a long history of study and activism within the spiritual humanist, political pan-Africanist, Black nationalist, anti-racist and economic cooperation communities.